dennis70

Gisaburo Sugii sure has had a eclectic career, starting out with children's fare like Jack and The Beanstalk. Here he takes Kenji Miyazawa's children's story and creates a living atmosphere. While highly detailed backgrounds are nothing new for anime, "Night on the Galactic Railroad" combines its finely crafted images with a brilliant use of frame shots, pacing, and audio montage to create a surreal and ethereal viewing experience.

If I tell you that this is the same guy who did Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie you wouldn't believe it, right? Well it is the same person. But this is without any doubt his best film. I have never had such an experience with an animated movie before (I particularly dislike most of anime) but this was enlightening. A must see.

Michelle Soavi's Dellamorte, Dellamore (1994) is one of the greatest of all horror films, but has never received the attention it deserves because of its lack of the proper trappings. Many ''great movies'' are by "great directors", but Soavi directed only a few this one film, since he has been usually overshadowed by his master Dario Argento, who took him as a protégée. Many great movies are realistic, but ''Dellamorte Dellamore'' is an expressionistic oddity, telling its chilling story through dashing visual fantasy, a dark sense of humor and the absurd. People usually don't know how to categorize it, so they leave it off their lists. But this is one of a kind. It is full of images you will never forget.

This is a tough one. Pasolini was a very complicated man. He was murdered in still-unexplained circumstances shortly after the film was completed. I was 10 years old when this movie was finished, but I only saw it now. Despite being almost 30 years old, Salo is probably the most cruel and repulsive film ever made, not just here in Italy but in the whole world. It depicts the worse atrocities inflicted to humans by humans. The true dark side of human nature: When evil is born out of simple boredom, when it comes naturally. It is a film that I don't want to see ever again, but at the same time I'm glad it was made. I thought hated it at first, but I now I realized is not true. Of course I don't love it either. I can't decide how to judge it. I don't like the cinematography or the acting. But it was definitely one of the most profound emotional experiences of revulsion I've had in a film. It is a necessary evil if you can endure it.